The markets are shaken amid the rising tensions between the United States and North Korea.

While this week has been more or less quiet in terms of actual economic events affecting the financial markets, it was quite the opposite in terms of politics: this week US President Donald Trump made several controversial comments that sparked a discussion on whether the United States would be going to war with North Korea.

Needless to say, such major fundamental events always have an effect on the markets. In this particular case it was Asian stocks (particularly in South Korea, which is dangerously close to a potential war zone) that dropped significantly – now they seem more insecure than ever, and investors are directing their attention to other safe-haven instruments such as gold, the Swiss franc, and the Japanese yen.

The currency of Korea, the won, also suffered losses against the dollar, dropping to its lowest this month as a result of the growing tensions in the region.

Australian markets are also somewhat affected, while the state of the markets in Japan is unclear since the country was celebrating a holiday and the market was not open. The American stock market also suffered amid the news, as did the stock markets in London, Paris, and Frankfurt.

So, what happened exactly?

North Korea, which has been more active in its testing of military weapons over the past few years, announced its intentions to fire missiles into Guam, which is officially a US-controlled territory. It is important to note that the Korean war never officially ended, so at least on paper relations between the United States and North Korea are not good.

In recent months tensions with North Korea came to light also because the communist state released a prisoner who was an American citizen, who reached the US in a terrible physical state. The young man showed signs of extensive brain damage; his condition was so bad that it completely baffled American doctors, and he soon died. This story rattled the West and caused people to speculate that North Korea is up to something.

Instead of addressing North Korea’s plans of attack through the accepted diplomatic channels, Trump took to Twitter to talk about retaliation, and then reaffirmed in an interview that he is ready to go to war if North Korea does attack any American territories.

This newly-added level of serious political insecurity rattled the global financial markets. The dollar marked new decreases against the yen. In addition, the yen is gaining on the USD due to issues with the American treasury and a possible default coming in the next two to three months.

Clearly this is a complex issue. So far neither country has attacked, but considering that President Trump and Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un have got to be the two most unpredictable leaders in the world right now, tensions are definitely growing steadily. Make sure you watch out for any related news and see how the markets are responding as more information is flowing in.

After the GBP/AUD recorded its highest level this year at 1.7647 in May, it turned back to decline by more than 1350 pips and it’s trading now at 1.6480. Today the Australian Dollar rose in the beginning of the week because of the tension between North Korea and the United States, in addition to China's foreign ministry saying there is no future in a China-U.S. trade war and adding that issues of trade and North Korea are not connected. The ministry also said that China pays great attention to protecting its intellectual property rights and says the essence of U.S.-China trade is mutually beneficial and a win-win.

The GBP/AUD currency pair is trading inside a downside price channel which may lead the pair to new lows this week. The pair’s trading between support and resistance areas representative at the trend lines and it’s expected that the pair will break the downside trend line to decline further. The moving average is trading above the prices which supports the negative vision, while the Stochastic indicator hasn't shown us the sell signal yet.

The Next Few Days

After we learned the outlook for the pair is down, we can take sell positions at the resistance levels, which means we can take sell positions now at the current level 1.6480, sell again if it reaches 1.6560, and place a third sell position at 1.6640, keeping our target for all of them at 1.6310.

This week the market has some hot news from the UK like the Average Earnings Index and the retail sales. In addition, we expect the Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes for the Australian bank and the Unemployment Rate.

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We have an extremely rapid upward trend but it seems like the peak has been reached.

It is difficult to imagine a more rapid upward trend than we can see on the EUR/SGD chart. The Euro strengthened against many currencies, but this did not lead to such a significant increase relative to another currency. At the moment it is likely that the price has reached a peak, especially amid disappointing statistics from the Eurozone. This week the market received data that indicates slower economic growth in the EU. Germany's GDP in the 2nd quarter amounted to only 0.8% yoy, while the market expected a GDP growth of 1.9%. The volumes of industrial manufacturing in the Eurozone fell in June by 0.6%, although this is in line with expectations. The eurozone's GDP is only 0.6% in Q2, which is also in line with the expectation of investors.

Thus, the Euro doesn't have enough stimulus for growth. The Singapore dollar gets the opportunity to consolidate at least at the current levels and prevent a further falling in price. During the last five months the SGD has changed in price from 1.4845 EUR up to EUR 1.602. It should be noted that the Singapore dollar is now at the level of November 2015. This is another reason why we say that the peak has been reached.

Next week the Singapore dollar can be supported due to the release of new statistics about industrial production volumes for July and the consumer prices index. The latest data on the economy of Singapore is showing a pretty good economic situation: retail sales in June grew by 1.9% and continue to grow for the fourth consecutive month.

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